


bedroom hymns

by woodswit



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 1940s AU, F/M, Grieving Sansa, Jon is dead, Jory is a priest, Previous Jonsa, Priest Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24191842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodswit/pseuds/woodswit
Summary: Sansa tells herself it's just the summer haze and lilacs doing her head in. Jory tells himself that it's just his faith being tested.It all comes to a head in confession.
Relationships: Jory Cassel/Sansa Stark
Comments: 28
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themiddleliddle (pennylane4)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennylane4/gifts).



> This is set post WWII and belongs to a bigger story I am writing, but I had to pursue this plot bunny thanks to themiddleliddle. 
> 
> Some background: Robb and Jon died in the war; Jory used to work for the Stark family.

After the searing sunlight and the buzzing humidity, the church is cool and quiet. Sansa's heels clack on the marble floor, and she pauses self-consciously in a beam of ruby and sapphire light.

Even though she has had years to become used to the idea, this all still feels as sideways and wrong as a dream. It just doesn't feel right for Jory; Arya was right when she said it earlier. _Jory can't be a priest._ Sansa knows it is not polite to say it now, not when Jory is striding toward her and her father, his wide grin infectious, the black shirt and tabbed collar pressed with pride. She also knows it is too late - Jory is a priest now, and that is his choice. But it was not so long ago that Jory was a man who always smelled like smoke, who was always cheekily in trouble with a girl - or three - and who would ruffle Arya's hair and tell them all that if it weren't for their father, he would lead a 'troubled life.'

Now his dark waves are pulled back from his face, and he smells not of smoke but of frankincense, and he is holding a small bible in one strong hand as he reaches to envelop her father in a tight embrace. The sleeves of his black shirt are rolled up; Sansa's mouth waters and she looks away.

"You've got quite the place here," Sansa's father jokes in that quiet, subtle way of his, and Jory throws back his head and laughs. Sansa lingers behind her father politely, holding her little purse as she studies the church, trying her best to seem like everything is quite ordinary. There's a fly buzzing by one of the windows, and sweat drips down the small of her back and into the waistband of her cotton skirt. It's one that she sewed herself; for some reason it was terribly necessary that she finish the skirt in time to wear it today. It is a pink striped seersucker that she was drawn to in the shop but that she now fears is babyish. She can feel her hair curling damply at the nape of her neck but it is unseemly to dab at her sweat, so she wills her body to cool down as she stares at that buzzing, trapped fly.

"And Sansa's here too," she hears Jory saying, and she turns to him as though she was not thinking of him at all.

For some reason she's enraged, so angry that she could almost let herself cry if she were alone - but ever since Robb and Jon did not come back from the war, her feelings have been wild and uneven, and where she should be angry she is weepy, and where she should be happy she is angry. She smiles at Jory and wonders, panicked, if they ought to embrace - but Jory only clasps his bible, smiling and looking briefly uncomfortable, and she has her answer.

"Of course," she says when she finds her voice. "We're all so happy for you."

For a moment he holds her gaze, and Sansa feels ashamed when he offers a smile that is almost sad. What does he mean by it? "A-and of course nothing has changed," she adds hastily. "You'll still be eating dinner with us on Sunday like always."

This is in part a lie; everything, everything has changed. Perhaps she is so angry with him because he too has not really come back from the war. He is Father Cassel now; just as with Jon and Robb, Jory is lost to her.

"Forgive us if we don't call you Father Cassel when you're with us," Ned says with a warm hand on Jory's arm, and Jory laughs again and looks down, biting his lip like he's trying not to be too pleased, and Sansa feels even more ashamed. He is happy about this; he is proud of himself. And there's been precious little to be happy about. God knows he deserves to feel some pride and happiness. She is selfish to begrudge him this happiness. He is a man who grew up believing he would always be the strong hands, the man in the background doing the quiet, heavy work for richer men. His father always wanted more for him, and now Jory has gotten what his father wanted for him. Why should he not have this shining moment?

Sansa leaves the church with her father after some more banter. It's only May, but it is as hot as July, and they step onto the old slate path and into a world of lush green and heady lilac. They're not far from her family's estate, Winterfell, but it's so unpleasantly hot that they drove here. Before the war, Sansa relished the rare moments she would get with her father alone, for so often his attention was focused on Robb. Now these moments only seem to echo that terrible morning that they received the news. Sansa thinks of this and suppresses another burst of rage toward Jory.

They walk toward her father's Lincoln Continental in awkward quiet. She knows her father is about to say something by the way he looks down, smiling slightly, as he walks.

"I'm glad you can be happy for Jory," Ned says as they close the doors and he starts the car. "It is an accomplishment for him, and your brothers and sister have not been so kind."

He is subtle as always. Though Sansa has not voiced her feelings on Jory's choice of career, her father can read it - and he is letting her know that he thinks Jory can read it, too.

"They're only sad that we won't see him as much anymore," she promises as they pull onto the road. They turn onto the road that leads to Winterfell, driving beneath lush green sycamores, past a mossy cemetery with a low stone wall that is hundreds of years old, lilacs peering over it, and Sansa leans against the window and tries to drown herself in the beauty of this Saturday morning.

"Whenever you saw him, he was sweating and working," Father reminds her. "You might have fond memories of it, and Jory's not one to be unhappy about hard work, but he might not think of his employment with us the way you and the others think of it."

How could she forget? She remembers looking out her window to see Jory working in the garden, showing Jon how to properly plant a boxwood. Shirtsleeves rolled up, strong forearms tanned and gleaming, dark hair clinging to the back of his neck. She can even remember the very day that that sight drew her eye a second and third time - a fourth would have been unseemly. She remembers that creeping sense of shame and of the squirming discomfort of noticing that things she had once thought unpleasant - like sweat gleaming on skin or wild dark hair or stubble - had suddenly become curiously fascinating. Private though her passion for Jon had always been, she has always seen its purity; looking at Jory, however, elicits other feelings.

"It hardly seems like Jory, though," Sansa admits without really considering her words, pressing her forehead to the cool glass. "There are other careers besides gardening and priesthood. He never seemed terribly religious to me."

"You didn't know him," Father counters gently. "Just because he was friendly and patient with you and the others does not mean you know him."

They are at Winterfell's wrought iron gates; privet and mountain-laurel are in full bloom and the air is thick with their fragrance. Father turns to look at her across the front of the car. "I hope you can convince your sister to be kind to him tomorrow, at dinner."

"Yes, father," Sansa promises.

* * *

"Perhaps you can get through to her." 

Catelyn crosses her arms over her bust and stares out at the little pond that is set aglow with the last gasp of sunset. "She won't talk to me; she insists that she is fine." 

Jory doesn't know what to say. For some reason, he has always tread carefully where Sansa is concerned, as though he's got something to hide. 

If any of them has something to hide, it's Sansa. Jory can hear Arya back in the dining room, arguing with Bran and Rickon; there's a record playing, something smooth and nostalgic. It is hard to believe that the Starks could be touched by the tragedy of the war, when it's like this: the world tinged gold, the air sweet and heady, the windows with the diamond-patterned glass that is polished, regularly, by maids. 

Jory used to be one of them: _the help._ From the age of eight, he followed his father around Winterfell, learning how to prune roses and shape boxwoods, how to care for the pond and how to weed around the peonies. It is a mark of the Stark family's kindness that he can come back and dine with them and feel no strain - at least, so long as he is not near Sansa. For some reason, he always is keenly aware of having been 'the help' when he is around Sansa. 

It's not her fault. It's his own problem, and he knows it. She's the sweetest of them all. 

"She seemed alright, yesterday," Jory offers, though it's a lie. Catelyn gives him a _really?_ sort of look, and turns back to stare out into the magnificent yard. 

"She's like a ghost. We all grieve Robb--" Catelyn's voice breaks, "--but it's been a year now. Youth doesn't last forever," she adds almost sardonically. "She needs to come back to life."

Sansa grieves her brother, it's true, but Jory knows it is not her grief for Robb that keeps her pale. Does anyone else know? They cannot, though it seems impossible that something so obvious would be missed by Ned's perceptive eyes. 

Maybe it's in his head. Maybe he's seen something that wasn't there at all. 

"I don't know how I can help," Jory begins at last, because he owes Catelyn and Ned, and he loves the Starks, and because the thought of Sansa - lovely, gentle, happy Sansa - grieving is impossible. "I'll do my best, but I never was as close with Sansa as I was with the others." _With Robb_ is what he does not say. 

"That might be what she needs. Sometimes I worry she's just trying to be strong for me," Catelyn confesses. 

Back inside, Jory finds Sansa alone in the parlor. She's considering the next record to play, her back to him, and she does not know he is there. She wears a light blue dress that is filmy and gauzy, its hem playing about the swell of her lovely calves, and Jory thinks, for some reason, _fox in the henhouse_ before shaking himself from it. 

"Al Jolson?" he teases, and she lets out a shriek and drops the record. 

"You scared me," Sansa says with a flush, and she bends down to pick up the record. "I don't know what to pick; I wanted something soft and gentle," she admits, turning the record over. She won't meet his eyes - or perhaps it's his imagination. "Something like those songs you used to sing when you were here," she adds, and what she doesn't say is, _when you were here working._ Sansa is the most polite of them; Arya and the others carelessly reference those days, and though Jory feels no shame for it - he is proud to have worked for a man like Ned Stark - there is a part of him that is both grateful for and offended by Sansa's consideration. 

"I'm here now," he points out, pushing away from the doorframe and entering the room. Like all of the rooms in Winterfell, it is tasteful but not showy; generations of wealth run in the house's veins so that no silks or crystal are necessary. It's in the heirloom rug, in the way the hardwood floors gleam with polish, in the way Sansa's hair is as bright as stained glass. Their eyes meet. 

"But you're not singing now," she says. "It would be strange if you were." She turns away from him and puts the record back. "Do you like to sing the hymns?" she asks as she studies the other records, her back to him once again. The air is tense and buzzing. 

"I do," he concedes wryly. He knows what this is about. "I love to sing the hymns. And I still like to sing those songs, too. I didn't know you ever could hear me." 

"They were pretty songs." He hesitates. "I tried to get Jon to sing with me, but he never would." He watches Sansa's back stiffen. "Wasn't that like him, though?" 

"I don't know. He was closer with Arya." Her voice is like ice, and a door has been shut. 

"Who was closer with me?" Arya pokes her head into the parlor. _Arya Underfoot,_ he used to call her. She would always antagonize him in the silliest ways - throwing pinecones at him from behind trees; climbing up the Scottish pine so that he had to climb up and bring her down on his back. Jory watches Arya's clever eyes flick between Sansa and him, then narrow. 

"The dog we had when we were little, Summer," Sansa says smoothly. Jory avoids Arya's gaze. 

Later, Ned walks Jory out. In the drive, gravel crunching beneath his polished black shoes, Jory turns back to look at Winterfell. He sees Arya standing by the door, looking at him carefully. _Fox in the henhouse,_ he thinks guiltily, though he does not know why. 

He thanks Ned and walks back to the rectory, a song on his lips. _Oh lovely girl, you are the cause of my sorrow..._

* * *

That night she slips out and into the garden, the humid night clinging to her legs and neck, and lies in the grass, surrounded by ghosts. Sometimes her bedroom is unbearably claustrophobic, and though it's unseemly to lie in the grass like this, ruining her nightdress and getting grass in her hair, Sansa does it anyway. She tries not to think of Jory - the very thought of him enrages her in a way she cannot manage - but she finds her lips curving as she tries to recall the songs he used to sing. 

_A chailín álainn, is tú fáth mo bhrón..._


	2. Chapter 2

It happens over the telephone, without Sansa's consent. As she walks along the road toward Jory's church, she imagines her mother on the telephone. _Of course Sansa would be happy to bring you leftovers, Jory. Oh, no, she's not busy at all._ Sansa can imagine her mother's clever blue eyes narrowing shrewdly as she looks at the ceiling, toward Sansa's room.

Quite to the contrary: Sansa has been very busy. Lately her life has been as scheduled as a synchronized swimmer's dance; she is always running from one obligation to the next that her mother has drawn up for her, as though she will busy-work Sansa into being her old self. Sansa dutifully attends every Junior League meeting; she calls on every family friend; she bakes cookies for a fundraiser for the church. 

Now she walks along a dusty road, hopping from patch of shade to patch of shade, carrying dinner leftovers to Jory, who surely is fed by the church and does not need Stark leftovers.

Catelyn is running out of believable excuses to force Sansa out of the house. This is truly the bottom of the barrel, but it doesn't matter--in just a month, she will be going to Cape Cod to spend the summer with her Aunt Lysa and her Uncle Petyr. Her mother is certain that seaside air can cure all ills, even Sansa's grief. 

Sansa knows that nothing can dispel her grief for Jon; perhaps because it is private, perhaps because it is not the same kind of grief as what she carries for her brother. It is not grief so much as a profound regret, and nothing can fix regret. It is a tattoo that only stretches and fades with time, sinking ever deeper into the skin. 

She wore flat shoes for walking, and a light blue cotton dress with Swiss dots that she got from Wanamaker's, which was so costly that most girls wouldn't even pay so much for their wedding dress, but for Sansa the price is meaningless. She is thoughtlessly sweating in it, walking the dusty road in it, and she thinks about this as she walks to Jory's church, passing other wealthy homes which are set behind thick palisades of mountain-laurel and Scottish pines and rhododendron. The dress means nothing to her, and the instant it goes out of fashion, it will be gone from her closet. Such comfort should be happiness enough for her, but as it turns out, you can still find despair in the pit of beauty. She knows that most people would laugh at her sincere misery; _go weep into your satin pillow, rich girl_. She wonders if Jory has ever thought such things about her.

Sansa is hoping she can quickly drop off the lunch, but when she knocks on the door to the rectory, Jory answers. He's wearing the black shirt and tabbed collar, but there is a casual air to him, and he smiles warmly when he sees her, like he's missed her. She must stop herself from smiling too broadly in return. Jory is just like that: people smile when he smiles, people laugh when he laughs. A bubble of resentment forms, because Sansa does not want to smile.

"Leftover delivery, courtesy of Jeyne," Sansa says, as promised. (Jeyne, who cooks and cleans for the Starks, has always been in love with Jory in a silly, exasperating sort of way.) Jory grins wider and takes the wrapped plate. There's ham and salad, and it's wrapped in a checked cloth whose white spaces are dotted with red hearts. Also courtesy of Jeyne.

"I chose my church wisely," Jory says slyly, peeking under the cloth. "I was missing her cooking."

"She misses you," Sansa says lightly. She cannot protest when Jory beckons her into the rectory, because it would be rude, so she follows his strong form. Floorboards creak beneath her flat shoes. The rectory feels like a farmhouse that has been used for hiding stolen, precious relics. The walls are spare save for a single, glinting crucifix, and the wooden dining table is chipped but bears a significant candlestick whose value is only slightly hidden by its grime. Sansa hangs by the door and watches Jory navigate to the kitchen and set the plate in the refrigerator, which seems so out of place that Sansa is annoyed by it.

From here, she can see a little bedroom around the corner. Single bed, streak of light, no rug. What does he sleep in? How do the sheets smell? She looks away, and there's Jory. His cheeks and forearms are tanned and slightly pink, she notices now, like he's been outside a lot. He should be outside, she thinks. That is where he belongs.

Then she feels guilty for it, and that bubble of resentment grows. She only means that Jory is an out-of-doors type of man; that his skin turns gold when it is kissed by the sun and his absent singing surely makes the flowers grow. He does not belong in storage with these permanent relics. 

"Nice dress," he says casually, leaning his hip against the table and crossing his arms. "Did you make it?" 

It is almost flirtatious, but of course, thanks to that black book and that white collar, it cannot be. She hopes she can put her flush down to the heat, and she looks down, spreading the skirt. Jory's always been kind about her girly interests, even when the other boys made fun of her (even Jon). 

"No, Mother took me to Wanamaker's," she admits. "I'm spending the summer with my Aunt Lysa and Uncle Petyr, and she thought I should get some new clothes." 

Something on Jory's face shifts; for a moment his brows knit together and his lips twist. "You must remember them," she adds. Lysa is unpopular with most men, and it would not be surprising if Jory disliked her. She is one of those women who is forever ill, always hiding in the stuffy darkness of her bedroom and complaining of a terrible headache. She cannot be the kind of woman that Jory would find interesting, because Sansa has always imagined that Jory likes playful, buxom blondes with loud laughs and short skirts, fleshy calves and rosebud mouths. 

Not that she's spent a lot of time thinking about it, obviously. 

"Yeah, I remember," he says slowly. His voice is strange, and controlled. He doesn't sound like himself. "Whose idea was this?" 

Sansa feels defensive and annoyed. Why is he interrogating her about this? 

"I don't know," she says, as though swatting away a fly, and tries to keep her voice pleasant. "I think it was Mother's, or else Uncle Petyr's. She was talking to him on the telephone, I think, and they came up with it." 

Jory arches his brows. 

"Nice of him," he says coolly. "To invite a young woman into his house for the summer." 

She doesn't know why this feels like an argument, but there's a sudden tension to the air. "They lost their son, right? So it'll be just you and them," he adds. "Mainly, you and Petyr. Lysa's usually unwell." 

She almost feels like he is cornering her into something. 

"Yes, Robin passed before the war. He was always sickly." 

Jory still looks vaguely disgusted, and she does not know why. "And I think it's a fine idea," she says now, and she doesn't know why she says it, because she doesn't really think it is. Something about it makes her queasy, but at the very least, it would mean getting away from her mother's insistent nagging. But she still feels like they are in an argument, and the way Jory is looking at her, like he's both annoyed and amused by her defensiveness, makes it worse. Something about him prickles her skin, makes her feel warm and irritable and emotional. "A change of scenery would do me some good," she adds after a moment. It's what her mother's said endlessly since the agreement was made. 

"Why?" 

The bald question makes her look up at him sharply, but his brow has smoothed, and his head is cocked to the side. 

No one has really asked her what is wrong, or why she might be sad. A lump forms in her throat. It has always been assumed, and why wouldn’t it? She was always closest to Robb. No one knows about Jon. No one knows about the scraps of letters hidden beneath her satin pillow; no one knows of the private ache in her chest. 

"Well, you probably know I've been--" she halts before her voice grows thick. 

The silence of the rectory rings in her ears, and she only realizes now that she can smell Jory's skin. It is a warm, familiar scent that makes her think of clean cotton, of waking slowly in morning light, of sweet pears and beer. "--Unwell," she decides at last. "Because, you know... my brother's death, and all." 

They stand there in the quiet. Jory is looking down at his hands. They are still calloused from a lifetime of back-breaking work. Her grief must seem utterly feminine and silly to him. 

But then he looks up, those warm brown eyes almost gold in the light streaming in. He does not look like he finds her silly at all. His adam's apple moves as he swallows. This young man is so vital and blooming; to think of him trapped here, just another relic losing its shine, makes the world seem unbearable. "I am sorry. I did not mean to bring sadness to such a beautiful day," she blusters, ashamed. 

For some reason her careful veneer feels cracked and translucent when Jory is near. She wishes she could meet him as others meet her; she wishes he could see her as untouchable and collected as others do, and she feels ashamed for such a wish. She knows it is vanity. 

"You didn't," he says.

* * *

The rectory is too small. Jory waits until darkness falls, and then he sits among the lilac blooms outside in the blue darkness, smoking a forbidden cigarette. It feels like relief. The night air is cleansing. 

Jory is above all practical. He knew when he entered the priesthood that he would not magically become a different man: he would be the same man he has always been. He has always had a taste for what life offered him. Women, wine, fun, danger. The priesthood was not a spiritual calling but an economic one, and he knew that he would chafe against its confines. 

He can only assume this is why he is having such thoughts; but it is a good reminder of what men think about, and it only makes him more certain of why Sansa should not go to her Aunt Lysa's home for the summer. 

She isn't a little girl--he can happily attest that himself. She is almost twenty-one, and the slight curve at her waist and the rose of her lips are proof enough. And yet Petyr Baelish has looked at Sansa since she was thirteen, fourteen--a lovely child, doll-like and sweet, but a child all the same. Jory remembers the many garden parties, the late summer dinners, when the man's green eyes trailed after Sansa's soft neck, the inside of her wrists, the arch of her bare feet. 

Is Catelyn blind? How can she possibly not see what Jory always saw, what Jory knows that Robb and Theon and Jon also saw--that Petyr has always looked hungrily at her daughter? Sansa is no little girl, it's true, but she is still young in crucial ways. She does not know how men think, especially not men like Petyr Baelish. Jory thinks of her flitting about in her little shirtwaist dresses, in a bathing suit, all smooth freckled skin and slender legs, the air fragrant with her subtle perfume. He can picture Baelish lurking. A fox in the henhouse. 

Other men of God would counsel him against such fears. Men must resist temptation, they would tell Jory; and, the Lord will provide for Sansa Stark. 

Jory puts out his cigarette. The cicadas are deafening. He is not a man of God, not really. He knows what men think about, because he is one; he also knows that the Lord does not always provide, because he knows what men have done to his cousin Beth, and what men have done to Jeyne, and what men have most likely done to so many other women he cares for. He knows what bad men do to vulnerable women, and right now, in her profound grief, Sansa Stark is vulnerable--and Petyr Baelish has always been a bad man.

He calls Catelyn from the telephone in the rectory, eyeing the black shirt he has torn himself. "Evening," he greets Catelyn pleasantly. "I know Sansa's busy, but do you think she's got time to mend a shirt of mine?" 

That night, he lies in his bed with the window open in vain, hoping to catch a breeze, and he studies his appointment book's calendar. Thirty one days until Sansa leaves for Cape Cod. 

He is a man and he still thinks like one, but he cannot act like a man anymore. He must not think of how her legs looked in that dress, he must not think of how the rectory smells of her perfume. He must not think of taking her by the hand and pulling her to safety. He must act like a priest, like a guardian, like a shepherd. He must help Sansa Stark--and now, he senses, there is a clock ticking away his chances. 

* * *

"Jory wanted you to mend it for him," Mother says carelessly of the folded shirt on the dining room table. She's in the kitchen, helping Jeyne, and Sansa sets her purse down and stares at the folded black fabric. She picks up the shirt and thinks of pear juice and beer and grass, thinks of golden skin and a sly mouth. Her mouth waters. Her grief, she thinks, has made her lose her mind. 

"How did he tear it?" she calls. The tear is in the shoulder seam, like he picked up the shirt and pulled hard on the arm and collar. The fabric is warm from sitting in a panel of sunlight, and she has to blink away the thought of touching Jory's shoulders, feeling the muscle and bone beneath the black fabric. 

"He didn't say. You know, he was always ruining clothes when he worked here," Catelyn dismisses. "I think he does a lot of yardwork for the church." 

There is no way he could have ripped this shirt doing yardwork. There is a quiver in her belly. She does not want to have these thoughts. "Can you mend it and take it to him?" 

Sansa wonders if Jeyne wanted to do this. It almost seems selfish, and she is certain that her mother stopped Jeyne from doing it, as Catelyn is hell-bent on giving Sansa _Activities_. She knows she should let Jeyne do it in secret--Jeyne would prize the honor of holding Jory's shirt, of scenting his skin left on the cloth, of stitching her love into his sleeve--but something holds her jaw.

She takes the shirt up to her bedroom and places it on her desk where she sews, and that night, she breathes careful and shallow as though there is a man in her bedroom. It occurs to her to take the shirt to bed, to hold it against her skin, but it is a ridiculous thought, and it would be improper, so she does not do it. 

* * *

The next day she walks, in the impossible heat, through dappled streets, and knocks on the rectory door. Jory doesn't answer, and she finds him in the back garden, digging up a half-dead bush. His hair clings to his temples and neck with sweat, his cheeks have a high flush, and his brown eyes are so sunlit that they look like the color of beer. 

"You're a lifesaver, Lady Sansa," he says with a grin at the sight of her. 

It is an old joke. The boys used to play knights; Sansa was always the princess, Robb, Jon, Theon, and Bran would be the knights, and Arya would always want to be a knight too and they would not let her. Sometimes they would make Jory be the villain--an evil king, or a dragon, or a sorcerer--and he would gleefully join in, terrorizing Arya and Bran with snarls and shouts, and joyfully dueling with Robb and Jon with sticks, with Princess Sansa or Lady Sansa--it changed with his mood--his hostage. She has forgotten that game, and now she cannot help but smile as Jory gets to his feet. 

He rubs sweat from his forehead with the inside of his wrist, smearing dirt along his hairline. Her fingers itch to wipe the dirt from his skin. "New dress?" he asks, gesturing for her to follow him into the rectory. 

"Yes," she admits, looking down at the pale pink linen. 

"You're not going to have any left for Cape Cod," he jokes as they step into the cool darkness. "Here, set that on the table." 

He's washing his hands in the kitchen sink, and Sansa looks around more closely at his life. The bible is open on the table and his dishes from breakfast are still in the sink. She imagines him eating alone, and her heart twists. Jory is a man meant to sit in pubs and bars, head swimming with smoke, leading other rough men in old Irish songs as they drink pint after pint. He is not meant to be alone. 

She swallows. What she does next cannot be explained; she has lost her mind. It happens quick as a flash: she unhooks her delicate coral bead bracelet and drops it on the floor. The little tap of the bead on the tile is not audible over the rush of water in the sink. 

"Did you need anything else mended? I don't mind." 

"I know; you always liked sewing," he muses, looking over a strong shoulder at her with a knowing, cheeky grin. "And I've heard you've got the best hand for it in the state. I couldn't go to any other seamstress," he says proudly. "Can I get you anything?" 

She thinks of the bracelet and smooths her features. She does not give it away by looking down. 

"No, I should head back. I don't want to keep you," she says politely. She avoids looking at Jory's collar. 

He walks her out to the road, past a heady vibernum buzzing with fat, shining bees, shading his eyes. 

"Are you wearing lipstick?" he blurts, sounding amused. 

"Yes. I looked a little pale today," she says defensively, and when Jory laughs, she laughs. "I almost always wear lipstick." 

"Haven't seen you wear it in a while," he says. 

She waves to him, and turns away before he can see her smile. She bites her lip. For some reason she feels quite silly and cheerful, in a mad way that she has not felt in a long time. There is a spring in her step, and she relishes the brush of the linen of her skirt, the clack of her shoes on the road, the waxy feel of the lipstick on her lips. She thinks of the little beaded bracelet on the floor of the rectory kitchen, and thinks of the word _lipstick_ on Jory's lips, and wonders if she is going to Hell. 

* * *

He does not touch the shirt. It is folded neatly, tied with parcel string, and sits on his kitchen table. There are twenty eight days until Sansa goes to Cape Cod. 

Something flicks across the floor, kicked by his shoe, and he groans, thinking it's a pest. He kneels down, and beneath the kitchen table there it is. 

A delicate bracelet. Fine jewelry, probably more costly than anything he has ever owned for himself. Jory hooks it on his finger and gets to his feet. The coral beads are still warm from Sansa's skin, and abruptly, Jory drops it on the table. 

He must be a shepherd, not a man. He must not be like Petyr Baelish, who might relish the feel of that warm bead against his skin, who might close his eyes and inhale the lingering notes of Sansa's perfume. He must be a priest, not a man. 

Still, he does not call the Stark house that day. He leaves the bracelet on the table and waits. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Fairy pools?" Sansa asks dubiously, following Jory out of the rectory.

"Fairy pools, I swear," he calls back over his shoulder. She has to hasten to follow his strides; she is glad she wore flat shoes today as her feet hit the bumpy garden behind the rectory. Earlier, when Jory called the house and she answered, he told her that she urgently needed to see something. His voice had been laced with mischief and impish, like when he had found the kittens in the hedgerow all those years ago—her heart had ached when she'd come and seen Jon cradling one, his rough hands gentle—and she had impulsively agreed to come at once. "Wear shoes you can walk in," he had warned her, and she had hurried faster to the rectory than would be ladylike. 

Now he tells her he's found fairy pools. It is proof that he thinks of her as a child, even if her heart sings with hope the way it once did at the very whisper of some kind of magic. 

The air is heavy with some lurking promise. Storm clouds are gathered overhead, ominous and swollen with rain unsaid. The grey humidity curls her hair damply at her neck and temples, makes her yellow dress stick unpleasantly to her skin. She cannot imagine how Jory is tolerating the heat in his black collared shirt and black pants, and then she is staring at the small of his back, thinking of his back, thinking of the golden skin being damp to the touch—she knows what his back looks like, after all—and she feels ashamed.

"I didn't know priests believed in fairies," she says lightly, following him through an arc of lilac and past a break in crumbling, mossy wall. The cemetery lies beyond it, and they walk past its most ancient section—centuries old, its moon-pale stones so worn and stained with moss that their names cannot be read—and down the hill, through thick rhododendron and pine. Branches snag on Sansa's dress, and part of her wants to protest because she loves this lemon-yellow dress, and the air is so hot and sticky and unpleasant, and all the work she did on her hair this morning is long-since undone—yet every time she thinks to complain and beg off, she finds she cannot speak.

"I reckon there's a lot you don't know about priests," Jory parries easily, as he ducks around an old well. They are moving deeper into this ravine, into the shadow of the cemetery's hill, and as the sycamores and rhododendron crowd them, the air grows stranger and darker—but pleasantly cooler, too. Her shoes scuff along mossy ground, and she has to grapple with birch saplings to stop herself from skidding downward. Jory's movements are easier, more confident. He is a man made of nature, and Sansa imagines, briefly and wildly, that everything he touches becomes tinged with green.

"My shoes will be ruined," Sansa points out, flushed in the face as they stumble to the very bottom of the ravine. It feels more like a valley: the grass is thick and dark, dotted with tiny yellow buttercups and stars of Bethlehem, and a narrow stream trickles along the bottom. Jory looks back at her with a grin.

"Then get a new pair," he teases carelessly, and she thinks of the rows of shoes in her closet, more shoes than any girl she knows has. It is not her fault she was born like a princess; she asked for none of this. If she cannot scorn Jory for being born to the working class, then why can he scorn her for being born to the upper class? 

Jory seems to see her discomfort, because he lets out a little breathless laugh, and pushes back his dark hair. It has become wilder and curlier in the heat, messy and improper. "Don't tell me you don't like shopping anymore," he adds, and they continue along the stream's edge.

She is cautious.

"Not if everyone resents me for it," she says carefully, picking her way along the slick rocks, holding her arms out to balance herself as she has watched Arya do.

"I could never resent you for anything," Jory replies easily. He does not even have to think of it. 

She watches him as they walk. He does not even have to think of his balance, either. He was not born to the working class, she thinks—he was born to the forest and the fairy folk, to a time of knights and maidens and towers, to a time of heroes and goblins. And sometimes she thinks she was born there, too. She has never quite settled in this era—when she sees crumbling stone or ancient moss, something like memory tugs at her heart, and she thinks, _that is home_. 

"Do you ever feel you were born in the wrong time?" she wonders.

"Oh, certainly. All the time." Jory ducks beneath a branch, then pauses to hold it high so Sansa can pass under it easily. They are too close, and she hastens past him. Now he is behind her, and she wonders if there is mud spattered on her calves, or if she is visibly perspiring. What does it matter? He is not looking at her like a woman. Right? "Sometimes I almost feel like I'm on the edge of a memory of a past life," he adds.

"What sort of life was it?" 

Somewhere distant there is thunder, perhaps over Merion, but in this strange land she is unafraid of rain. 

"It must have been something near the ocean," he muses, "because I always feel it near the ocean. And it must have been in Ireland, because I feel it when I sing those old Irish songs." 

It is like he knows the secrets of her heart. That anyone else might feel this way is overwhelming—and that it is Jory feels like some special, spectral gift. Jory is known for being able to get along with anyone, and Sansa wonders if this understanding is simply what he extends to everyone, or if it is as special as it feels. "And what sort of life did Lady Sansa have?" His voice is teasing but not unkind. 

She ponders this as they walk. They pass by the remains of a crumbling wall—surely they must be close to these so-called fairy pools?

"Something magic."

"I could see that," Jory agrees thoughtfully. "You seem like someone who might have had wings, or pointed ears." 

He's certainly teasing her now. When she looks back, he flashes her a quick, devilish grin, and she rolls her eyes. "Here we are—at last. I promised it was worth it." 

At the very lowest point of this valley, set in a small grove of trees, the stream collects in a series of shallow pools ringed by rock and wreathed by enormous silvered tree roots that are thick as her arm, with moss between them. The leaves above them are so lush and thick that they feel like a roof, and when Sansa walks to the edge of the largest pool, it is so dark that she wishes for a candle, and chilly enough that her sweat cools on her skin. A prickle of memory raises the hair on her skin; this is where the sword was pulled from the lake, this is where Ophelia drowned, this is where a thousand enchanted lovers shared their first kiss. 

Jory is kicking off his black shoes and rolling up the hem of his black pants. Careless and boyish, he drops down onto one of those large roots that look like lace edging the pool, and there's a faint splash in the black water as he kicks his feet. 

Sansa is self-conscious as she unties her shoes, and is glad that Jory is not looking back at her. She only feels pretty when she is clean, cool, and perfumed; and she only wants to be around Jory when she feels pretty. She is vain and self-absorbed and self-conscious. She knows these things about herself and accepts them. But Jory is Jory, and anyway, he's a priest, and he probably does not notice one way or the other when she looks pretty, even if he did comment on her lipstick. It was probably said in the way Robb might've said it. So she kicks off her shoes and socks, and sits down on the edge of the pool beside him, the wet moss seeping through her dress. She is careful to not sit too close to him, but with the way the roots are shaped, there are few comfortable places for her to sit. 

In the pool she can see her reflection rippling across the black water. She is transformed: her hair has come free of its careful coif and hangs about her shoulders, messy and wild and tangled. She looks feral and strange. 

"I look like a drowned rat," she muses, sitting up straight again and attempting to smooth her hair. 

"No, you look like the fairy queen, Lady Sansa," Jory counters easily, and when she looks at him, he's grinning fondly at her. It is a strange smile, sad and sweet yet sly, too. "The fairies probably don't have curlers," he reminds her, leaning back and bracing his hands behind him. "I found this place yesterday morning on one of my walks, and it made me think of you when you were small," he explains. "I thought you could use some mystery." 

She hates to be pitied, but she does like to be thought of. She kicks her legs slowly in the water, not enough to make a splash. 

"That's kind of you," she says diplomatically. "What made you think I needed mystery?" 

"Oh, between all those things you're always doing, there's hardly any time for wandering and wondering, I figured," he brushes her off. "There can't be any mystery at those Junior League meetings. You used to like to lie on your bed all day and daydream," he remembers. 

"Well, I was a child then," she points out. "We change as we age." Something about the heady fragrant air makes her say it: "you used to like girls rather a lot, and now..." 

She has stumbled into impolite territory, but Jory is grinning as he stares out at the water. 

"I did like girls a lot," he admits slyly. 

"Were you ever in love?" She finds a little purple flower in the moss and picks it, feeling its velvet petals across her fingertips. 

"Hm. I think I was in love with every girl I met in those days." He laughs to himself. "What about you? Have you ever been in love?" 

This is her greatest secret. She does not look at Jory; she stares down at the flower, then flicks it out onto the water, where it floats and spins. 

"Yes." A lump forms in her throat. She stares hard at the spinning flower. "Very much so." It is a fight to keep her voice steady. Her eyes burn. "He died in the war. Don't tell anyone." 

"Sansa." 

She doesn't look at him, but in her peripheral vision she can see him shaking his head. "Does anyone know? You can't keep that all to yourself," he says gently, softly. Like he feels her grief for what it is; like he understands the weight of it suffocates her. But he does not know the full story—would he be so kind if he knew whom she had loved so deeply? Even now her neck burns with shame. 

"Only you, now," she admits. "It's quite private. I..." she struggles to explain, "...I do not want to share it with anyone. It is my own business." 

"Thank you for sharing it with me," he replies. 

There is a distant rumble of thunder again, and she blinks rapidly until her eyes have stopped burning and the urge to cry has passed. When she looks at Jory, he is studying her, his brows drawn together, as though he is reading a complicated book and is unsettled by what he sees. 

"Your turn," she says, her voice falsely bright. "This isn't Confession. I told you a secret, now you've got to tell me one." 

Jory thinks for a moment. He has always been willing to play any game. _Arya Underfoot,_ he would call her sister in complaint, but then he'd chase her anyway. 

"I took a girl to your parents' house late one night when I still worked for your father, and kissed her by the koi pond," he admits suddenly. "Oh, that one feels good to get out. Been holding onto that one for years." 

She surprises herself by laughing and looking at him in shock. 

"Why? What would it matter?" 

"Oh, it was just foolishness," Jory dismisses, shaking his head ruefully at his past behavior. "I felt like I had betrayed your father's trust." 

"It was just an innocent kiss," Sansa says, then sees a sly look pass over Jory's face and watches him look away, his neck flushed. "Oh. Not just a kiss." 

"Not so much more than that," he cautions her, "but it was hardly innocent." 

This 'fairy pool' is not so different from that koi pond. How did that faceless girl feel, to sit by the water with Jory and be kissed by him? How far apart did they sit, and how did Jory do it—how did he lean in, how did he tilt her head towards his? "And here's another one, since that's hardly worth the secret you just told me. Sometimes in mass I get the mad urge to start swearing and saying obscenities, and the urge makes me laugh, and I have to pretend to cough," he adds suddenly. 

"What?!" she gasps. "That's terrible—why?" She starts laughing when Jory starts laughing. 

"I don't know, everyone looks so serious, sitting there in their fine clothes, trying to remember the words to the hymns, trying to get their little ones to stay quiet and sit still, and you can tell who's paying attention and who's thinking about lunch—it just suddenly hits me. And they're all staring at me like I'm somehow different from them, that's strangest part, like I was born different, born closer to God, and not so long ago I was more wild than any of them." 

"You were never wild," Sansa scoffs, but Jory is shaking his head again. 

"No, I was," he insists, "and I still am, sometimes, though it's easier now to reign it in. I still go to the pub and drink as much as any of the men there, and I still swear when I stub my toe. Nothing about me is any different than before I became a priest—but they all look at me like I'm holy, and sometimes it strikes me as funny." 

"I think people always looked at you in awe, a bit," Sansa admits. "My father still does—and Jeyne does, too." 

Jory folds one leg up so that he can rest an arm on his knee, and he looks at her with that impish look, like he's about to say something sly and self-deprecating—

—and then there is a last crash of thunder, and the heavens open, and even through the thick leaves, sheets of rain begin to drench them. 


End file.
